Going PLACES: Responding to the call — and learning to co-struggle alongside organizers in the South
BY Leticia Rojas, Gulf South Program Officer, Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, and 2025 PLACES Fellow
“Shift from being a funder to being a co-struggler.”
Weeks after hearing Dawn Harrington, executive director of Free Hearts — an organization led by formerly incarcerated women — speak during a PLACES site visit in Nashville, her words are still ringing in my ears.
Throughout…
Going PLACES: Beyond philanthropy: Reflections on our year of sites visits in the PLACES Fellowship cohort through a transformative lens
BY Raquela Delgado-Valentín, María Fund, and Victor García The James Irvine Foundation
At the beginning of 2025 we had every indication that the current challenging chapter across the nation and around the world would deepen to a magnitude we had not experienced before. We knew, however, that in our own lives and as professionals working in philanthropy, we were committed to centering the…
Going PLACES: The Land Remembers Us: Inherited Wisdoms
BY Cheri Souza, Hawai‘i Postsecondary Success Program Officer, Stupski Foundation, and 2025 PLACES Fellow
As I left Saint Paul, the message got louder; slow down and listen, the land is speaking.
Growing up in Hawaiʻi, understanding the precious relationship between ʻāina (land) and people was natural. I grew up between the beach and the mountains, and I learned early on that living on an…
Going PLACES: From NYC to CNY, a Journey of Equity, History & Belonging
BY Jonathan T. Reid, Program Officer, ECMC Foundation, and 2025 PLACES Fellow
As a native New Yorker, I thought I knew my state. But until recently, I had never set foot in Syracuse. That changed during a site visit with my TFN PLACES Fellowship cohort — and what I found there felt like a homecoming.
TFN's PLACES (Professionals Learning About Community, Equity and Sustainability)…
Going PLACES: On Radical Love
BY Tim Murphy, Program Officer of the McKnight Foundation, and member of the 2024 PLACES cohort
If you work in philanthropy, you know the phrase: “The word philanthropy comes from two Greek words meaning the love of humankind.”
While well-intentioned, I would bet a small fortune I am not the only person working in this sector that has rolled their eyes as that phrase reverberates around a…
Going PLACES: Weaving Together Joy and Horror in Denver
BY Eric Phamdo, Senior Program Officer, Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, and 2024 PLACES Fellow
“We are living in a constant juxtaposition of both horror and joy — and I’m not sure how to navigate that; not in my personal life, and not in the industry that is philanthropy.”
— Marci Ovadia, PLACES Coach and Facilitator.
As the 2024 PLACES Cohort came together for the…
Going PLACES: Conflicting histories — and a future worth fighting for — in Denver
BY Patrick Moreno-Covington, PLACES Fellow and Program Officer, Rockwell Fund
During TFN's PLACES Fellowship, we understand that when we go on a site visit, Fellows are in for new experiences where we learn from and alongside dynamic funders, community organizers and nonprofit leaders who offer their own expertise about their communities. We pair what we thought we once knew with new…
Going PLACES: What Does It Mean to be Remembered?
BY Jarryd Bethea, PLACES Fellow and Senior Research Associate, Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative
The time I spent during our recent PLACES Fellowship site visit in Cleveland demanded that I abandon the assumptions I arrived with: It's just another city in the Midwest.
Leaving those assumptions behind meant that I could become better acquainted with Cleveland, practice community with the…
Going PLACES: We All We Got — Powering Up the Margins for Self-Determination
BY Qiana Williams, PLACES Fellow and Program Officer, Central New York Community Foundation
“We All We Got,” was boldly written in black letters against the backdrop of a warm yellow wall in the reception area of the Village of Healing Center of Cleveland, Ohio. This community-based organization provides high-quality health and healing services for Black and brown women with dignity,…
Going PLACES: Love as a Force to Dismantle White Supremacist Systems
BY Maria Aquino, Senior Program Officer on the Priority Communities Initiative at The James Irvine Foundation, and 2023 PLACES Fellow
During the third PLACES site visit, our cohort ventured into the Southwest to Santa Fe, N.M. In the PLACES tradition, our first day provided some foundational context about the city, which was led by City of Santa Fe historian and author of…